Why read anymore? | The Vergecast

在一期引人深思的《The VergeCast》节目中，主持人杰克·卡斯特尔扎纳基斯采访了《大西洋月刊》特约撰稿人罗斯·霍洛维茨，探讨了她的文章《阅读的终结近在眼前》。霍洛维茨在文中展示了关于阅读衰退的惊人数据和深刻见解，揭示了其与科技的紧密联系以及可能带来的社会影响。 霍洛维茨的文章强调了一些触目惊心的数据：2022年，表示曾阅读过任何形式书籍的成年人不到一半；而2023年，每天为消遣而阅读的美国人比例更是降至仅16%。赌博甚至已经超越了阅读书籍，成为一种常见的休闲活动。霍洛维茨承认了历史上关于阅读消亡的警告（例如马歇尔·麦克卢汉在1962年或尼尔·波兹曼在1985年提出的警告），但她认为，尽管这些预言并非立即带来末日，却准确地预示了阅读的**渐进式**但持续的衰退。她断言，这一趋势线清晰可见。这种衰退不局限于任何单一的人群，甚至影响到了历史上热爱阅读的人群，例如退休人员、大学毕业生和女性。 霍洛维茨做出了一个关键的区分：在人们消费的总词汇量和正在消失的阅读**类型**之间。美国人“可能比以往任何时候都阅读了更多的文字”，他们被电子邮件、短信、社交媒体帖子和图片说明所轰炸。然而，这种短文本的持续涌入却是以“丰富而复杂的文本……需要长时间深入阅读”为代价的。霍洛维茨将这种转变定义为“后识字时代”（post-literacy），而非文盲，这改变了我们对“阅读”一词的理解。 这种衰退的最大驱动因素与科技紧密交织。电视最初挤占了阅读时间。最近，流媒体服务、智能手机和宽带互联网使人们“更容易不阅读”，它们提供了无限滚动和不间断的娱乐，阻碍了持续的注意力。认知科学家解释说，尽管我们的大脑没有发生根本性变化，我们却习惯了即时满足。霍洛维茨引用研究表明，在短短15年内，屏幕上的平均注意力持续时间从两分半钟下降到47秒，这表明我们持续的媒体消费如何让我们习惯了快速切换。 这种注意力持续时间危机超越了阅读。霍洛维茨指出，电影教授们观察到，对于学生来说，长篇电影现在太长了，他们习惯于“从一个短视频切换到下一个”。这预示着对于任何“有深度”或需要持续专注的事物，都将面临更广泛的“注意力持续时间终结”。 在教育领域，这是霍洛维茨主要关注的领域，正在发生类似的转变。课程已经不再要求阅读整本书；最近一项调查发现，大多数初高中教师每年只布置0到4本书，更偏爱为标准化考试准备的节选和理解练习。此外，科技越来越多地融入课堂，80%的小学教师报告称，学生在幼儿园之前就收到了数字设备。大学教授们注意到学生与文本关系发生了“根本性变化”，他们认为阅读是“一种武断的获取信息的困难方式”，更倾向于人工智能生成的摘要。 当被问及这种衰退为何是个问题时，霍洛维茨解释说，这并非关乎播客或TikTok的内在劣势，而是关乎一场根本性的社会转变。我们用来交流的媒介塑造着我们的思维、政治和文化。从书面文字转向更多口头和视觉形式，将从根本上改变我们的意识以及社会所珍视的价值。 人工智能的出现增添了另一层复杂性。人工智能的独特之处在于它能够为我们**写作**。霍洛维茨担心，过度依赖人工智能进行写作，可能会阻碍个人参与写作本身所培养的批判性思维过程——即“弄清楚自己的想法”这一行为。矛盾的是，尽管人工智能生成了大量文本，这些文本通常经过润色且具有说服力，但它同时要求（并威胁到削弱）我们的批判性辨别能力，以识别其输出中的不准确或偏见。 尽管大多数专家不认为能够回到一个以书籍为中心的世界，但霍洛维茨讨论了潜在的前进道路。例如，学校禁止使用手机已经取得了积极成果，达拉斯的一个学区在实施禁令后，图书馆图书借阅量增加了20万册。最终，霍洛维茨认为，恢复深度阅读是“一种意志行为”——个人和社会有意识地决定重视并保留阅读所提供的独特益处，即使身处数字干扰的汪洋大海之中。

In a thought-provoking episode of The VergeCast, host Jake Kastrzanakis interviews Atlantic staff writer Rose Horowicz about her article, "The End of Reading is Here." Horowicz presents alarming statistics and insights into the decline of reading, its intimate ties to technology, and the potential societal implications. Horowicz's article highlights stark figures: fewer than half of all adults reported reading a book of any kind in 2022, and the proportion of Americans reading for pleasure on any given day fell to just 16% in 2023. Gambling has even surpassed reading a book as a common leisure activity. While acknowledging historical warnings about reading's demise (like those from Marshall McLuhan in 1962 or Neil Postman in 1985), Horowicz argues that these predictions, though not immediately apocalyptic, accurately foretold a *gradual* yet persistent decline. The trend lines, she asserts, are clear. This decline is not confined to any single demographic, affecting even historically avid readers such as retirees, college graduates, and women. A crucial distinction Horowicz makes is between the sheer volume of words consumed and the *type* of reading being lost. Americans are "probably reading more words than ever before," bombarded by emails, texts, social media posts, and captions. However, this constant influx of short-form text comes at the expense of "rich and complex text... read for a sustained period of time and deeply." Horowicz defines this shift as "post-literacy," not illiteracy, a change in what we understand "reading" to mean. The biggest drivers of this decline are deeply intertwined with technology. Television initially crowded out reading time. More recently, streaming services, smartphones, and broadband internet have made it "so much easier not to read," offering infinite scrolling and continuous entertainment that discourages sustained attention. Cognitive scientists explain that while our brains haven't fundamentally changed, we become accustomed to immediate gratification. Horowicz cites research showing the average attention span on a screen dropped from two and a half minutes to 47 seconds in just 15 years, demonstrating how our constant media consumption conditions us for rapid switching. This attention span crisis extends beyond reading. Horowicz notes that film professors observe feature-length movies are now too long for students, who are accustomed to "flicking from one short-form video to the next." This suggests a broader "end of attention spans" for anything "meaty" or demanding sustained focus. In education, where Horowicz's primary beat lies, a parallel shift is occurring. Curricula have moved away from assigning full books; a recent survey found most middle and high school teachers assign between zero and four books a year, favoring excerpts and comprehension drills for standardized tests. Furthermore, technology is increasingly integrated into classrooms, with 80% of elementary teachers reporting students receive digital devices before kindergarten. College professors note a "fundamental change" in students' relationship to text, where reading is perceived as an "arbitrarily difficult way to get information," preferring AI-generated summaries. Asked why this decline is a problem, Horowicz explains that it's not about the inherent inferiority of podcasts or TikTok, but about a fundamental societal shift. The medium we use to communicate shapes our thinking, politics, and culture. Moving from the written word to more oral and visual forms will fundamentally change our consciousness and what society values. The emergence of AI adds another layer of complexity. AI is unique in its ability to *write* for us. Horowicz expresses concern that over-reliance on AI for writing might prevent individuals from engaging in the critical thinking process that writing itself fosters – the act of "figuring out what you think." Paradoxically, while AI generates immense volumes of text, often polished and convincing, it simultaneously demands (and threatens to erode) our critical discernment skills to identify inaccuracies or biases within its output. While most experts don't foresee a return to a book-centric world, Horowicz discusses potential paths forward. Cell phone bans in schools, for instance, have shown positive results, with one Dallas school district seeing a 200,000 increase in library book checkouts after implementing a ban. Ultimately, Horowicz suggests that restoring deep reading is "an act of will" – a conscious decision by individuals and society to value and preserve the unique benefits that reading offers, even amidst a sea of digital distractions.